A major developer is proposing to build affordable and market-rate housing in two entirely separate towers on Greenpoint’s East River waterfront, and Community Board 1 members are calling it classist and a direct reversal of years of community-won housing policy, according to the Brooklyn Downtown Star.
At a June 9 CB1 meeting, the development firm TF Cornerstone presented plans for two residential towers on a vacant lot: a 792-unit market-rate building at 10 Noble Street and a 267-unit, 100% affordable building at 2 Oak Street. The developer is applying a universal affordability preference, or UAP, to the project (a zoning mechanism that allows developers to build 20% more housing in medium- and high-density residential districts if the additional units are permanently affordable). Because TF Cornerstone is building under existing zoning rules rather than seeking a rezoning, the project bypasses the lengthy public review process a rezoning would trigger, the Star reported.
Board members objected to the split, pointing to West Wharf, a nearby development with separated affordable units where rent-regulated tenants have described squalid conditions and neglect.
“Across the street, at West Wharf, the segregated tenants have been living in horrible conditions,” CB1 Land Use Committee Co-Chair Stephen Chesler said at the meeting, according to the Star. “I’ve had contact with some of these residents, and they are still experiencing some of those problems, and it just adds insult to injury, the segregation.”
CB1 Second Vice Chair Del Teague said the proposal reverses a policy shift the community spent years fighting to achieve. “This community worked so hard to get a change of policy, so that in this district affordable units are integrated with the market rate and people who live in the affordable units get access to the same amenities, so that they’re not treated differently,” Teague said at the meeting. “So all I can say is, if this is where the city is going…my heart’s broken.”
Greenpoint City Councilmember Lincoln Restler said at the meeting, “I think there are some good things about this project. I don’t like this segregated housing, and I do think we should look at what we can do about that moving forward.”
TF Cornerstone Senior Vice President Jon McMillan pushed back on concerns about building quality and management at the meeting. “We are considered to be one of the best landlords in the city,” McMillan said. “We never sell anything, we keep it forever, we manage it forever, so we build it very well, and it’s our own management that will be living in the building, so I can promise you it will be very well constructed and managed.”
In a statement to the Star through PR firm Berlin Rosen, a TF Cornerstone spokesperson said the separation is a financial necessity. “Breaking the project into smaller components helps us bring more housing to Greenpoint by making the development easier to finance and operate,” the statement read. “Organizing the development into smaller buildings allows us to deliver a higher level of management and customized service, maintaining the quality standards that define our portfolio.” The developer also said the project would include publicly accessible waterfront space and retail.
Chesler told the Star, “It’s morally and ethically offensive that they’re allowed to do this purely for financial gain. They could do the right thing, they would still be incredibly lucrative apartments if they were mixed.”
